Around the Big Ten (Basketball): Week 2
The Big Ten and the Big East conferences are matching up with one another this week as the Gavitt Tipoff Games take place.
Starting out with the first big matchup of the Gavitt Games, Wisconsin matched up against Providence. The Friars were able to get the upper hand on the Badgers in the matchup with a 63-58 win. The Badgers got 25 points from Brad Davidson, but it was not enough to get over Providence.
The other big matchup that happened on Monday was between Marquette and Illinois. It was a tight game throughout, but the Golden Eagles were able to squeak out a 67-66 win over Illinois. The Fighting Illini are still without Kofi Cockburn and an additional seven turnovers from Andre Curbelo helped Marquette get an early-season impressive win.
Moving on to Tuesday’s games, the No. 4 Michigan Wolverines were upset by Seton Hall 67-65. The Wolverines were led by Hunter Dickinson who had 18 points but it was not enough as the Wolverines had an early-season upset.
Creighton was also able to beat Nebraska 77-69 on Tuesday to give the Big Ten four losses to start out the Gavitt Games.
On Wednesday, the Big Ten would finally get some wins. Michigan State was able to easily handle Butler 73-52 with Gabe Brown leading the Spartans with 19 points.
Then the Indiana and St. John's game would end in a close 76-74 battle right to the end. Indiana would take the victory with Trayce Jackson-Davis leading the Hoosiers to the close win with a double-double to his name in 18 points and ten rebounds.
The Big Ten would now be down four to two for the Gavitt Games so far with two games left to be played in Ohio State at Xavier and Rutgers traveling to Depaul.
However, there were several teams this week that did not play in the Gavitt Games. Many were able to take care of business against low mid-major schools except for Penn State.
The Nittany Lions struggled mightily against the UMass Minutemen. UMass was led by Trent Buttrick who had a career-high 19 points against his former team in a revenge game. Penn State was down 37-33 in the first half to the Minutemen and never got any offense going in the second half to keep up with the 44% mark from three-point land that the Minutemen ended the game with.
The Minutemen would end the game on a 44-23 streak to end the second half and take the 81-56 win over the Nittany Lions. The game was Penn State’s first away game in the new Micah Shrewsberry era.
For the weekend in the Big Ten, No. 18 North Carolina will face off against No. 6 Purdue in a huge matchup between ranked teams early in this season. Ohio State will also face Seton Hall who’s coming off their huge upset over Michigan. Illinois will be looking to bounce back against Cincinnati.
The Big Ten season is starting to get into the swing of things with great action throughout this whole second week.
Dale Ostrander is a third-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email dko5097@psu.edu.
